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ad experiences that suggest we are not always doing well in this important work and that it s not just christians who make great supporters for children in care this is the established church we have a special position from which to speak to the nation when i made it back to my computer as that debate ended i was reminded that it was the anniversary of the day on which the synod passed the legislation allowing for women to be bishops back in 2014 it was a useful reminder that eventually change does come as there was complete silence from the archbishops about the previous day s voting on my private member s motion that was helpful in his sermon for the service that ended this quinquennium of synod the archbishop of york spoke on rest from our labours and said and if you feel let down by the church battered by the storms of our debates let down by the general synod let down by the bishops marginalised and excluded for whatever reason come to him whose love for you is perfect without condition unrestrained and i fear that you can go to church in the church of england for a lifetime and no one ever tells you this stuff straight thankfully having been made the archbishop of york i ve received that gift of the spirit that for some reason isn t listed in the bible the gift of bluntness dear friends you are included by god even if his church is still trying to work out what that inclusion looks like and you each of you is dearly dearly loved precious not because of achievement holiness or moral probity but because you are the one for whom jesus died like me a sinner saved by grace indeed the church is still trying to work out what inclusion looks like before that service synod considered the abuse redress rules with more clarity about how the payments will be made the rest of the morning was devoted to another private member s motion from another oxford member val plumb on protecting nature on church commissioners land the commissioners are a major landowner and the motion asked them to work to meet the united nations 30by30 target 30 of land and seas protected for nature by 2030 at present the figure for our land is more like 3 5 this was an interesting debate not just because it meant that we heard from various churches doing the eco church programme my own church is a silver eco church an amendment was successfully made by the bishop of norwich supported by the first church estates commissioner alan smith this had a very different content nothing on the 30by30 target which was described as too soon but bringing in other environmental objectives like managing forests in a sustainable way arguments were also made about the need for food security and the balance between investment and effectiveness and we heard about pingos in norwich i had to look that one up val rejected the amendment but there was much support for it the house of bishops voted unanimously in favour it s easier to agree on the environment than on sexuality evidently the motion was passed as amended and then synod was officially dissolved and prorogued so i am no longer a member of synod over the past five years i ve attended every day of every meeting usually for all of it it s been a far more intense experience than i ever imagined i ve had the opportunity to work with together for the church of england and to be a trustee of a theological college as well as an elected member of the national ministry development board the support and challenge from the various whatsapp groups to which i belong has been something i d not expected whatsapp wasn t invented when i had my first stint on synod i ve met some amazing people and am pleased with much of what we ve achieved i m not finished yet so i intend to stand in the elections and then it s up to the lay deanery synod members of my diocese whether or not i resume that membership again i remain entirely transparent about what i believe and what organisations i belong to so what you see is what you get this blog will continue regardless thank you for reading and commenting here and through other modes of communication share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading posted in general synod tagged care system children education environment ministry development board safeguarding transparency leave a comment synod at home 3 long monday posted on july 13 2026 by fluff35 back in february i submitted a private member s motion a pmm that this synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed faithful intimate same sex relationship and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with christian discipleship any member of synod can submit a pmm and mine was aimed at ending this very bruising synod quinquennium with a positive pastoral statement about the invaluable but apparently unvalued contribution of lbgtqia people to the church all those pmms which had reached the threshold of 100 votes have been scheduled at this july synod so this morning mine was debated back when i first tabled the motion there was a certain amount of conservative kerfuffle online they didn t like the word intimate i observe that we seem to be hung up on intimacy we witnessed an example of this during synod questions on friday question 14 was from mrs anna de castro sheffield asking the chair of the faith and order commission in the context of the living in love and faith process what meaning has faoc given to the word intimate and the response she was given that faoc has not found it necessary to explore the meaning of intimate and to provide a more technical definition to the word than offered by its common usage common usage eh my first thought was the usage in an intimate little italian restaurant during a catch up on the tennis i saw a mixed doubles match in which the commentator assured us that someone on the other side of the net knows both players intimately and then there s intimate care which is all about toilets and continence yet in these endless debates some members of synod seem to think intimate is all about bodies and pleasure if you say sexually intimate maybe that s a reasonable interpretation but i didn t just look at the words of my motion that didn t stop conservatives both before today and during the debate on the pmm telling me that i meant it no in the supporting paper which i was asked to put in before synod met i tried to make this clear i wrote that if we reduce intimacy to bodies and indeed to specific acts of those bodies we are not doing justice to the depth of our need for trust and closeness intimate is used in this motion to recognise that deep devoted passionate relationships of many kinds exist and always have existed and that includes a range of types of physical contact in a response to another synod question july 2023 synod q72 the then bishop of london helpfully noted that llf has always tried to recognise that the expression of sexual intimacy between two people cannot be reduced to a small set of defined actions my motion was deliberately short of course no fundamental objections was a reference to the 1975 motion which began the journey towards women priests looking at my motion conservatives were complaining that they did have objections but of course some people did in 1975 too and they simply voted against however i heard the concern and in the time between submitting the motion and coming to the debate several of us worked on trying to address it should we spell out the presence in the church of other views by the time amendments had to be put in we had come up with an amended form of the motion which we thought addressed this and more so that was submitted by chris dalliston the dean of peterborough appearing as item 54 on the agenda that this synod a affirms that all baptised believing and faithful persons regardless of sexual orientation are full members of the body of christ b delights in the lives and ministries of lgbtqia people in the church of england c recognises a legitimate range of theological perspectives held in good conscience across the church of england on the right ordering of committed faithful intimate same sex relationships and d recognises that this includes views that affirm and views that reject the position that there are no fundamental objections to being in such a relationship and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with christian discipleship and ministry so basic pastoral message plus recognition that there are other views within the c of e as i was not able to be in york the motion was moved by professor muriel robinson who opened by talking about her friends david and stuart who have been together since theological college in their early stages of ministry there was no problem in accepting their relationship but as they were increasingly badly treated both left ministry and one gave up on faith this is a very sad story and it is not uncommon why does the church do this to people the chair of the debate chose to hear at an early stage from proposers of amendments to give us a sense of what they were about the first of those item 53 was from the chair of the house of laity jamie harrison it is quite long so i shall just summarise it here he aimed to remove all the pastoral focus of the original motion making it instead into a brief statement of where we are now with the prayers of love and faith permitted in existing services and ah that s the problem there s nothing else to put on that list because nothing else has happened in the direction of welcoming lgbtqia people in the c of e so the rest of the motion restated that sexual intimacy properly belongs within marriage which was odd as that moves us into opposite sex relationships which were not within the scope of my motion the amendment also tried to reduce the impact of no fundamental objections by claiming that there are also many people who aren t certain what they think and others who think same sex relationships run counter to the message of scripture and the christian tradition it ended by mentioning the new working group for which we voted in february although it hasn t started meeting yet as so far it has only got a chair no members there were many excellent speeches including adam kendry an armed forces rep noting that it is now 26 years since the armed forces got their act together on accepting lesbian and gay people anna norman walker pointing out that the motion was not about liturgy and doctrine just about the ordinary people in our parishes bishop nick chamberlain the first out gay bishop who as an acting bishop doesn t have a vote in synod pointing out just how bad the times are for lgbtqia people graham kirk spriggs a vicar on his experience as the only gay person in the room being told fornicators won t inherit the kingdom of god martin auton lloyd noted that in his deanery there are more clergy in civil partnerships than in marriage a key theme was how lesbian and gay clergy and lay people ask not for change but simply for recognition of their lives and ministries as graham put it where is he a lifelong anglican affirmed why is he not included there were some rather odd speeches from conservatives worrying about whether intimacy is an ambiguous word read my supporting paper holding up the is it a duck is it a rabbit optical illusion don t ask but there is an excellent discussion of its use in the debate this morning here assuming sexual and romantic are the same thing conjuring up the image of the church as the bride of christ but with a muddy dress and a speech by a traditionalist young woman who is certain that she should not enter a same sex relationship that s of course up to her it doesn t help those who have found security and growth in such a relationship the voting was complicated when jamie harrison s amendment item 53 came to the vote it was defeated there was a vote by houses meaning that something has to pass in all three of them which went bishops 17 in favour 7 against 6 abstentions clergy 78 in favour 90 against 4 abstentions laity 88 in favour 93 against 1 abstention so it failed in two houses and thus failed overall when chris dalliston s amendment item 54 was voted on however it passed in all three houses bishops 12 in favour 8 against 8 abstentions clergy 100 in favour 68 against 4 abstentions laity 102 in favour 76 against 4 abstentions bearing in mind that this amendment entirely replaced my original short motion you d perhaps think that the voting on it would be replicated when we went on to vote on the motion as amended after all this had exactly the same words no on the final amended motion we voted bishops 11 in favour 14 against 4 abstentions clergy 93 in favour 79 against 0 abstentions laity 101 in favour 83 against 0 abstentions assuming that there were roughly the same people in the room or on zoom some of the clergy seem to have decided they were against rather than in favour but the overall vote result was a pass however the bishops changed their votes in a way that led to the motion failing because of the house of bishops this is very baffling and perhaps some time we will find out what was going on in the later debate on trust professor veronica hope hailey commented on how very very odd the c of e is although what she was thinking about were its structures at national and diocesan level alongside its reliance on volunteers at parish level she observed that it s not clear who is in charge bishops claim that they only have soft power but then look at them at a coronation i d add voting by houses can also show their power she noted that synod just goes round in circles and that s what we did on my pmm the day ended with bishop robert springett updating us on safeguarding a key comment was that safety depends on a culture that will not abide theology being used for coercive purposes he also supported mandatory reporting rather than reliance on the seal of the confessional this was pushed back on by bishop philip north there was a question about what counts as spiritual abuse which as i heard it came rather close to asking for support for conversion practices about spiritual direction about why not all lessons learned reviews are published and about the training which has to be carried out in parishes to help people to volunteer as parish safeguarding officers long day lots to think about not least that the bishops suddenly felt unable to support saying that all baptised believing and faithful persons regardless of sexual orientation are full members of the body of christ i am guessing that this is their problem as i cannot see that they would fail to agree that we have a range of views in the c of e what message is this sending to those faithful queer people who are clergy and laity and bishops in the c of e share this share on x opens 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